Judy sat down, defeated, on the floor. Loud heavy metal music blared
from her oldest daughter's room, but it wasn't able to drown out the
screams of the baby, or the other two children fighting over their
video game. She covered her ears and closed her eyes. "This is not
happening," she whispered. Rocky had took off six months ago with
some stripper going by Tabbi Kitean, leaving her to face this hell
alone.

She couldn't take it anymore. She had to get out of the apartment,
even if was only for five minutes. So she left.

She wandered around town, blindly for quite sometime. All of a sudden
someone said, "Judy Harmon?" She looked up into the face of Bobby
Drake. She saw him and realized that she couldn't hold back the tears
any longer. She started sobbing right in front of him.

The next thing she knew, she was in Starbucks with him wiping her
tears away with a napkin. "I can't believe I broke down in front of
you like that," she told him, her voice still shaky. She looked at
him. "Why'd you break up with me, Bobby," she asked him.

"You broke up with me," he said. "Actually, you ran away
screaming from me."

"Oh yeah," she mumbled.

Bobby leaned back in his seat, trying to take all of this in. Judy
looked awful, and he felt sorry for her. But he also felt angry towards
her, because of how she had reacted to him that night. He had been
in love with her and she had crushed him.

"So what's been going on with you?" he asked her.

"I married Rocky Beasly," she said, softly. She saw anger flare in
his eyes. "We went to the same college and he had changed. Atleast
until the day after our wedding. He did everything in his power to
hurt me. He even turned the kids against me. All of a sudden I'm pregnant
again and he's ran away with a stripper. Now I've got four kids, no
job, and no husband."

"So, right now you're wondering if I'm gonna help you out," he asked.

"Please, Bobby," she begged.

"No. Judy, I don't know if you remember but that night, you hurt
me and despite the fact that I'm not one to hold a grudge, I can't
just let that go," he said. He wrote something on a napkin. He handed
it to her. She looked at it and saw that it was a phone number. "Get
yourself out of this mess and call me when you can think of something
to do besides ask me for a handout," he said. He left.

Bobby returned to do the Institute a few hours later. The little
red light was flashing on the answering machine. He pressed the button
on it.

"You have two messages," the computerized voice announced.

The first one was for Jean. The second was Judy.

"Hey, Bobby," she said in slurred voice. "I was thinking that I was
wrong for asking you for a handout, when the way out of my problems
should've been so clear. Don't worry, I haven't done anything stupid
like cut my wrists. This way is so much easier. This way I just fall
asleep." He heard her phone click off.

One week later.

Bobby stood at Judy's grave. Henry was next to him. Not knowing
what to say despite his intelligence, Henry asked, "Are you okay?

Bobby glared at him. "Of course I'm not okay. She asked me to help
her and I didn't. I pushed her to do this. How am I supposed to feel?"

"You can't blame yourself for this. Judy was unhappy, even if you
had helped her she would've still done this," Henry told him.

He nodded. "You're probably right," he said, turning to Henry. "If
you don't mind, I kind of want to be alone, right now"

After Henry left, Bobby sat down. "Judy..." He paused, trying to
find the best way to express how he felt. "I'm really sorry that you
were so sad with your life that the only way you thought you could
escape it was through death," he said. "But I'm not sorry
for what you did to me."

He stayed there for several more hours before going back to the Institute.